Idea: An "EventFX overrides MediaFX" switch

fausseplanete wrote on 11/14/2009, 2:57 AM
For grading, would be highly helpful if there was an option for EventFX to override any Media FX. For example a checkbox on the EventFX dialog. At the moment their effects aggregate in series.

Example: Suppose I set a MediaFX to give a good general grade but then I notice some scenes (when the sun came out) are blown-out by the MediaFX (Levels). For those scenes, want to apply FX to the un-FX'd source media.

Workarounds are possible e.g. instead of using MediaFX use a "wrapper-project" round the source media with in-project (Event/Track/Master) keyframed FX (e.g. to let-up the LevelsFX input-maximum when the sun comes out) but the override approach would just be plain handy - there's not always time for the elegant approach.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 11/14/2009, 6:38 AM
How about using two video tracks. Set track effects on one of them for the general correction. When you come across a section that doesn't need it, split it out and move it to the other track.
fausseplanete wrote on 11/14/2009, 6:54 AM
Good idea but difficult for me because my track is MultiCam from dissimilar cameras, so I have to apply the grading upstream of each "Take", which is why I use MediaFX or wrapper-project. Wrapper projects do work and allow keyframing better than MediaFX but are a pain due to the need to render ".sfap0" each time they are altered.

If there was a way to add an extra Take to an existing MultiCam track (I don't know of one) then the MultiCamTrack could have more than one grade of the same footage as separate Takes (alongside the other real separate cams), raw and cooked (possibly in more than one way).

Can't simply render-out and use intermediates because I find camera-matching to be an iterative process, based on what the overall scene and transitions look like, and what new things I keep learning on-the-job (even after years I have been doing this) about camera differences and use of Levels/gamma and secondary color correction etc. to compensate for them. Also I am short of disk space!
rmack350 wrote on 11/14/2009, 11:44 AM
Since MediaFX are supposed to apply to the entire piece of media rather than applying on an event-by-event basis it seems like this idea sidesteps the point. However, the way MediaFX work in Vegas isn't very satisfactory anyway so why not try to make it better?

What I don't like about MediaFX is that Vegas doesn't give you any feedback that they've been applied. There are lots of ways that could be done...a MediaFX column in the Media Pool window, a changed icon in the same window, some sort of indication in the Trimmer as well as a way to see and adjust the effect without putting it on the timeline. I think these are really the FIRST things that ought to be done in Vegas to refine the MediaFX feature.

Now, to address your need, how about indicating the presence of Media FX in the chain when you're adding EventFX. So you could see as you apply EventFX that there are some MediaFX at the start of the chain. Add the ability to turn them on or off just for that event (your Bypass idea), and also offer a way to drill down to the MediaFX and change them (with reminders that you're changing a global FX for all events using that piece of media).

What I like about this is that the event FX window is more informative, maintains its metaphors, and satisfies a few needs.

Rob Mack
fausseplanete wrote on 11/16/2009, 1:02 AM
Good points Rob. Even better would be the ability to select from or even define a set of one or more MediaFX chains. The way I'd use that is for example when the camera had been pointing at one direction or scene, I might select one chain, but when pointing at another one I'd switch to a different chain. For a live event, the camera must be kept rolling and at ingest-time there may not always be time to elegently split up into scene types via ClipBrowser etc. Or one might simply not know at that stage which scene types need different grading. I for one need to see it on the timeline, how it flows (mood as well as camera matching and transition fluidity) and iterate around a few times experimentally before I know when the grading is right.

So it's all on the timeline, hundreds of cuts, and even if one did have time (haha) to re-ingest differently-looking scenes as separate media, then replacing media for some but not all events is not simple (as far as I know - though I wonder if I am embarrassing myself here).

Otherwise (if it were simple to replace media for individual events), as a workaround, separate media could be provided, each containing the different scene types. These separate media could exist either as actual media files (re-ingested & split) but (e.g. to minimise extra disk space usage) or they could be virtual. Virtual media could either be nested vegas projects or else AviSynth+VFAPI. The AviSynth route, though slightly "fringe", offers advantages. Some say this route more efficienly reads-in Mpeg2 media (than does Vegas on its own). In any case, my experience of using nested "media wrapper" veg projects is they play at lower frame rate than raw media (especially an issue for CPU-demanding HD). I also tend to use AviSynth for its other pre-processing abilities, such as deinterlacing and de-haloing. But coming back to the main subject, the point of defining multiple virtual media (based on the same real footage) is that that would allow Vegas to define separate MediaFX for each virtual media. The only issue then would be how to replace media for individual events only, so that they can be easily switched-between for individual events. Any tips on how best to do that anyone?

The ultimate would be the ability at edit-time (when the full picture emerges) to define different classes of events, then being able to switch an event between different classes, or even to allow an event to be fed from more than one class of FX (a sequential list of FX classes/chains switchably overriding or adding to each other). Getting towards multiple class hierarchies and object orientation in other words. The latter was evolved in programming languages for exactly the same sort of pragmatic reason - avoiding the need for fiddly identical/consistent changes at lower level. Yes I have been doing a lot of that recently! A kind of informational "lever". Anyone know of any systems that already cater for that?

Coming back down from "outer space":

Chains can of course already be defined and saved, and these can be applied at any level. I do that all the time at Event level. But with hundreds of cuts, experimentally changing between these for each individual event becomes time-consuming and tiresome and the latter increases the chance of mistake (e.g. pasting event attributes over events that already have attributes - but hey that's another topic). Of course it's still necessary to inspect each scene but the process of switching between effects is a nusance that deserves to be minimised. And no-one wants to apply Levels FX (eg at event level) on top of other Levels FX (eg at media level) because it slows crunching (playback & render) and especially for our primarily 8-bit footage, significantly destroys information (quantizes, leading to banding).